SolarWinds Log & Event Manager: No more complex Searches

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Editor's Corner

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This week's newsletter is dedicated to all you fat IT pros out there. I used to be one of you, but at the ripe old age of 56 I finally decided to do something about it by losing weight and getting into shape. Some of you have done the same--good for you! Many however would like to do so but are worried about failing or aren't sure where to start. To help you I'm going to share some details concerning my own journey from fat IT pro to reasonably fit dude (for my age).

Disclaimers

Before I begin relating my weightloss/fitness story, I should mention that I am neither a certified fitness instructor nor a qualified nutritional counselor and that I am neither recommending a program nor providing medical advice. I am only telling my story and am presenting my personal observations to you "as is" with no warranties or guarantees. Before embarking on any new weightloss or fitness program, you should see your doctor and consult with qualified professionals.

Did I do that before starting my own weightloss/fitness journey? Of course not. But you should.

The Beginning

I'm 5 foot 11 inches (1.80 meters) and have always been a bit on the flabby side. For example, I like to tell people that my favorite sports in high school were chess and bridge. Actually my favorite sport was eating.

My weight really started ballooning when I became a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) in the mid-90s. The stress of my job together with having to constantly learn new technologies drove me to find my solace in food. My weight shot up to 250 lbs and I started buying my clothes at "big and tall" stores.

Things got even worse when I started my own business in 1998, and soon my doctor was warning me that my blood pressure and cholesterol were getting into dangerous territory. I looked for a solution and found the Atkins diet, which appealed to me because it seemed to say I could eat as much as I wanted and still lose weight. I actually lost about 30b lbs and my cholesterol dropped down into the normal range, but I found it hard to stick to the diet and eventually gained it all back.

The missing ingredient was probably exercise. But I also needed some positive motivation because "you're going to die if you continue this way" doesn't tend to help that much.

Jason Statham

Then about two and a half years ago I realized I was getting bored with life. I'd learned how to build a business from scratch and how to maintain and even grow it during difficult economic times, and I was starting to wonder if there were any new challenges left for me to conquer.

So one day I was browsing the magazine rack at a bookstore and I saw a photo of Jason Statham on the cover of Men's Fitness Magazine:

I want to look like that, I thought to myself. I enjoy Statham's movies, and admire him as an actor who actually does many of his own stunts. Plus he's cool.

So I opened the back page of the magazine (I'm a very forward-looking kind of guy) and saw this story about an IT guy in his 40s who was my height and weight and had transformed his life by losing 71 lbs:

And I thought, if he can do it, so can I.

Browsing further through the magazine, I found an article by a fitness editor who lost 35 lbs and got into terrific shape in only 12 weeks. What I found really useful was that he shared details of how he changed his eating habits, and after reading his story I realized I could live with that kind of diet too.

Suddenly I realized I had found the new challenge I had been looking for--to transform my body by altering my eating habits and incorporating exercise into my life. And that's what I did, only I ended up transforming more than just my body.

Anyways, the important thing is that I was no longer bored.

The Beginning

I started out by doing simple bodyweight exercises such as arm swings and toe touches. I bought a pair of 5 lb dumbbells and lay on the living room floor doing various exercises. At first I sweated like a pig doing even light stuff like this. Remember, this is a guy who never, ever did any exercise or sports during the first 55 years of his life. So you can imagine how weak my arms were.

In fact, I had actually snapped a tendon in my arm a few years previously shoveling snow. It went "bing" like a rubber band breaking, and I couldn't raise my forearm afterwards. I figured that my other arm muscles would eventually learn to compensate, so I didn't see the doctor. And sure enough, both my arms now function equally in strength and mobility. Still, it was pretty dumb of me not to see my doctor when this happened.

I also bought a reclining exercise bike and started using it daily. I actually got up to burning off over a thousand calories a day using the bike, but eventually I had to scale back because my knees were starting to get pretty sore.

I also started recording everything I ate to keep track of the calories I was consuming each day. I had learned from different reading fitness magazines that there were two simple requirements for successful weightloss: exercise and caloric restriction. Here's a photo showing the stack of notepads I accumulated keeping track of my calories over a period of more than two years:

I've recently graduated to something a little more sophisticated and now keep track of the number of grams of carbs, protein and fat eaten daily so I can learn more about how my body responds to different macronutrient ratios:

Speaking of fitness magazines, as the next photo shows I've bought quite a lot of them:

I've read all of them at least three times and plan on continuing to re-read them. Why? Because I believe that a key ingredient of success in any endeavor is to learn everything you possibly can about the field you're trying to master. Learning for me is fun, especially when it's something new that offers challenges and potential rewards. Plus reading a fitness magazine each morning is a great way to get motivated for the day's workout.

Measuring Progress

I started my personal fitness journey in September 2010, and as the following Excel chart shows, I made rather good progress:

After 36 weeks I went from 250 lbs down to 197 lbs, and I felt like a totally new man. More accurately, I felt like I used to feel when I was in my 20s and early 30s, a feeling I had forgotten until losing weight brought it back to me. I was still pretty weak though, for while I had lost more than 50 lbs of fat, I probably had put on only a couple of pounds of muscle.

Still, I was definitely transformed. Here's a photo of me from about 12 years ago when I weighed over 250 lbs:

Now here's a photo of me at the one year milestone of my fitness journey:

I look a bit washed out in this photo. Probably my thyroid function was low from eating too few calories. For although I said earlier that exercise and caloric restriction were both needed for weightloss, there comes a point of diminishing return if you follow a calorie-restricted diet for too long a period of time. That's one of a number of helpful things I've learned over several years by reading tons of literature on the subject. The solution of course is to eat more, but won't that cause one to gain weight?

Up Next

Anyways, after having shed over 50 lbs of quivering blubber, what happened next? Around the time the above photo was taken I realized that I needed to start building some strength, but I'll save that topic for a future issue of this newsletter.

Send us feedback

Got questions or comments concerning anything in this issue? Email me at wsn@mtit.com

Tip of the Week

Ever want to start a virtual machine on a Hyper-V host and then wait until the guest operating system has finished booting and has settled before you perform some other action on it? Check out the PowerShell snippet from Ben Armstrong in this post from his blog:http://www.wservernews.com/go/1363863443472

Contact me at wsn@mtit.com if you have a tip you'd like to share with our readers.

Recommended for Learning

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Webcast Calendar

MSExchange.org Webinar: The Hidden Costs of Email Management

Email clearly dominates communications in today’s business environment. The ever increasing need to manage, archive and restore mission critical email communication can quickly drive up your costs for storage, infrastructure, time and human resources. Diligent organizations must look at ways to change those cost factors to avoid ongoing budget impacts.

Join J. Peter Bruzzese, Microsoft Certified Trainer and CIO and CoFounder of ClipTraining on Wednesday, March 27, 2013 for a live MSExchange.org webinar, sponsored by Kroll Ontrack.In this complimentary 45 minute Webinar, you will discover:

Steve Goodman looks at what's under the hood of DirSync, perform reconfiguration to ensure we only synchronize a specific Organization Unit then after checking everything is in order, perform an initial synchronization.http://www.wservernews.com/go/1363863509988

Should you replace your TMG firewalls with UAG (ISAserver.org)

Deb Shinder takes a look at the key differences between TMG and UAG from a new perspective: determining whether UAG might serve as a feasible (if expensive) replacement for TMG in the event that Microsoft continues support for it after TMG is considered dead.http://www.wservernews.com/go/1363863515410

Sberbank of Russia estimates that it will save approximately $100,000 by eliminating the servers and software licensing that it used for its third-party SAN replication solution and replacing with Hyper-V Replica.http://www.wservernews.com/go/1363863524441

Enterprise hard drives (WindowsNetworking.com)

Mitch Tulloch examines the different types of enterprise hard drives and how to compare them on a cost/performance basis so IT departments can make informed purchases for server hardware.http://www.wservernews.com/go/1363863530050

Tips and Tricks for Navigating the New Windows 8 User Interface (BizTech)

Keith Mayer explains how one of the new features provided in SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 Cumulative Update 2 is the ability to now backup SQL databases and logs to Windows Azure cloud storage using native SQL Server Backup via both Transact-SQL ( T-SQL ) and SQL Server Management Objects (SMO).http://www.wservernews.com/go/1363863547972

Windows Server News

Managing the hybrid cloud model

The hybrid cloud model offers the best of both cloud worlds, but how do you manage this dynamic environment? Inside this exclusive tip, explore five essential areas to consider when planning out your management strategy, including security, budgetary control, fault monitoring and more.http://www.wservernews.com/go/1363863552472

Providing storage for VDI: Shared or SAN?

Most IT pros that are leveraging VDI are deciding between two storage options – shared or SAN. So what are the advantages and drawbacks of each? Explore essential insights on both shared and SAN storage strategies so that you can determine which one is right for your VDI environment.http://www.wservernews.com/go/1363863557816

Workflow automation software showdown: Citrix, Microsoft and VMware

Many businesses are looking to invest in workflow automation software to boost performance and minimize management complexities, but how do you know which offering is right for your IT environment? Explore insights on the top three vendors in the market to see how they stack up to one another.http://www.wservernews.com/go/1363863564800

While cloud-based disaster recovery (DR) can significantly reduce costs and simplify DR planning, many VMware administrators are unsure whether the benefits of this approach outweigh the drawbacks – even with the various VMware platforms available to help. Find out more inside.http://www.wservernews.com/go/1363863569113

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WServerNews - Product of the Week

SolarWinds Log & Event Manager: No more complex Searches

Finding answers to simple questions in your log data doesn’t have to be painful. SolarWinds Log & Event Manager simplifies finding answers. Take advantage of the drag-and-drop search builder and avoid complex Boolean searches. Use the interactive visual drill-down and get clear view of results. And use normalized terms instead of learning unique terms for each device. Spend less time finding answers. Start using simple searches today.

WServerNews - Editors

Mitch Tulloch is Senior Editor of WServerNews and is a widely recognized expert on Windows administration, deployment and virtualization. Mitch was lead author of the bestselling Windows 7 Resource Kit from Microsoft Press and has published hundreds of articles for IT pros. Mitch is also a seven-time recipient of Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for his outstanding contributions in support of the global IT pro community. Mitch owns and runs an information technology content development business based in Winnipeg, Canada. For more information see www.mtit.com

Ingrid Tullochis Associate Editor of WServerNews and was co-author of the Microsoft Encyclopedia of Networking from Microsoft Press. Ingrid is also Head of Research for our content development business and has co-developed university-level courses in Information Security Management for a Masters of Business Administration program.